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Comment by TheDong | Hacker News Reader

They don't have an open source kernel. You can't recompile the kernel or build your own device drivers. I'm not sure what you mean by "learning about computers", but I personally find being able to peek into the kernel source code to be more educational than anything in the mac ecosystem.

The hardware here is incredible, but it's crippled by not adequately supporting Linux, BSD, or any other properly open source kernel you can compile and install yourself. A good learning environment doesn't put up immovable barriers like "you need a kernel signed by apple", it lets you push away barriers when you're ready, like "Are you sure you want to turn off secureboot, or install your own secureboot keys"

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I’d bet 99% of professional developers have never peeked at kernel source code or built their own device drivers.

It's something you never need to look at, until suddenly you do and then it's invaluable. Any time you format some data for another system and get a cryptic error code back, looking at the source code becomes invaluable.

The parent commenter said "learning about computers". Most "professional developers" don't learn about computers, they learn enough react to get a paycheck, but don't have an insatiable curiosity about how the whole computer works (i.e. the "hacker spirit").

Professional developers are not what this thread is about. It's about curious kids, about hackers, and that group does peek at kernel source code (as well as everything else).

I’m fairly confident that the Venn diagram of (a) nine-year-olds that are playing with a computer and (b) people who claim that access to kernel source code is a prerequisite to “learning about computers” is two circles that are barely touching.

> You can't recompile the kernel or build your own device drivers.

I just don’t think this is what, like, nine-year-olds are looking for in a computer.

In any case, at least it’s good that they’re starting with macOS over Windows! Puts them on a good path to understanding that POSIX is the One True Paradigm and therefore makes them much more likely to compile their own kernel in the future.

I was that kid, and can confirm.

My curiosity for all things computer related was boundless, but I eventually tinkered with Linux but only because I’d had been exposed to a *nix style command line from the comfort of an OS X desktop first.

By then I had started messing around with code but had only built toys and extremely basic tools and would’ve been lucky to write a moderately functional desktop program using high level libraries (which didn’t happen for several more years).

Writing drivers or poking around in kernel code was so far beyond the scope of capabilities at that point that you would’ve had better luck teaching your dog how to knit. I don’t think I could’ve had any chance at doing these things until at least my mid 20s.

> Writing drivers or poking around in kernel code was so far beyond the scope of capabilities at that point that you would’ve had better luck teaching your dog how to knit.

I get the feeling a whole bunch of teenagers have written drivers to cheat in Fortnite/whatever other game - with that being said, probably not at 9 years old.

> They don't have an open source kernel

Yes they do in fact, it's called darwin XNU

https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu

Eh, qemu runs just fine, so you can peek at Linux kernel code (and recompile and experiment with it) on the Mac just as much as you can on Linux.

> then what most young people use daily.

Most people are using Windows or phones where that isn’t an option.

Yeah you can root or change the OS but that seems outside the spirit of the comment to me.

These are Macs. They run Xcode and you can develop apps for your iPhone for free with one.

Yeah you need to pay to distribute, but a computer to do it has never been cheaper.

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